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Every year, hundreds of startups from all over the globe take part in a global competition called The Creative Business Cup. The CBC empowers entrepreneurs in the creative industries, connects them to investors and global markets and strengthens their innovative capabilities to the benefit of industry and society. It is a featured event of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), being one of the top five events in the world. The CBC is actively promoted in more than 150 countries around the globe. There are two main stages of this annual competition. The first is the National Competition in which startups from each respective country compete to be the national finalist who will then compete with national finalists from all over the globe at the Global Finals.

The Global Finals each year include:

• Over 500 participants • Representation from more than 60 countries • More than 100 pitches from great startups around the world • Prizes worth over 150,000 USD • 480 articles all over the world which reach more than 25 million readers

Innovative Yemen, CBC’s first partner in Yemen, launched the first national competition on the 4th of September. Startups were invited to fill out and submit their business concepts through the YouNoodle platform. The deadline for the application process was 30th of September. The judging round was launched on the 1st of October and ended on the 3rd of October. The national winner was announced on 4th of October.

The applications came in from many different sectors, some from the service sector and others from education. From those that applied, 10 startups met the full requirements.

A jury of three highly qualified judges and experts of industry were invited to participate in this critical stage. Our first judge was Bill Kenny, CEO and Founder of Test My Pitch, an online platform where entrepreneurs and business professionals draft, share, and receive feedback on their idea pitches and self-introductions. Our second judge was Mohammed Alafranji, Managing Partner at Aqar Circle, an online property finder – based in Amman, Jordan – providing online listings of real estate properties. And our third judge was Yousef Hamidaddin, ex-CEO of Oasis 500, a leading early stage and seed investment company, the first of its kind in Jordan and the MENA region.

The judging was based on 5 criteria; Market Potential, Business Concept, Aesthetics, Team & Customers and Funding & Revenue. More weight was given to the Market Potential and Business Concept criteria. The judging round was conducted through YouNoodle.

Our three finalists were Kids Space, Ebda’a Company and AnaMehani.

The winner of this year’s CBC national competition was Kids Space but due to unforeseen circumstances, Maria Bukeir, the founder, had to drop out so the runner’s up, Ebda’a was supposed to go. Ebda’a is a company that is specialized in generating power using wind energy. The company was established in 2013 in Sana'a Yemen with management team consisting of 10 girls, but it was closed after the last war in 2014. Since 2011 people have suffered power outage and they tend to use alternative sources of power such as electrical generators which is, in addition to its high price, not safe and causes pollution. As a result, they thought of providing the community with renewable and non-polluting source which is wind energy and they came up with a power generating system called Electro-Ebda'a system. This system can be defined as a small turbine modified to generate power between 800-1000W, so it can be used for domestic usage.

“Working throughout this process only confirmed what I had already been sure of; that Yemeni entrepreneurs are creators, risk takers and have lots of passion. They are truly at a high standard of professionalism and are able to compete regionally and globally.

Innovative Yemen is pleased to be CBC’s national partner and will continue to work together for future projects,” Fadi Alwadan, the Ecosystem Lead at Innovative Yemen, who was responsible for overseeing the entire process from signing the partnership with CBC till announcement of the winner. Fadi worked tirelessly for two whole months to work on an initiative that ideally takes a year.

“The purpose of participation in such competitive platforms is to build awareness on the innovative side in Yemen, and, also, to become a catalyst for wider and greater participation across Yemen. We started late this year yet are proud to see Maria represent Yemen, and look forward to greater participation as we start early next year preparing to win in 2018”, Yousef Hamidaddin, Chairman of Innovative Yemen.

Ebda’a was going to represent Yemen this year and compete with different creative startups from over 150 countries. However, both the startup, Ebda’a and the Innovative Yemen team member, Fadi, were not able to go to Denmark this year. Fadi could not leave Yemen because of the total blockade and the founders of Ebda’a would not have been able to leave nor make it in time to get the lengthy and expensive consular situation sorted out.

Innovative Yemen secured the funding to pay for all the travel, accommodation and participation expenses for this year’s national winner to attend the Global Finals in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hopefully next year’s winner will be able to attend and compete.

Often times, people see headlines like this and feel immense sadness but don't know how to move forward. The situation in Yemen is overwhelming and quite daunting to even the most seasoned of ears. Anytime we, the Innovative Yemen team, discuss the crisis with non-Yemenis who aren't aware of the situation, we're met with shock and confusion and genuine concern for the people in Yemen. We wanted to translate that into action and that's where the 'hackathon' idea came up.

Basically, a hackathon is an event that's intense and fast paced where participants have to work together to solve problems, creatively. The hackathon focused on cholera and consisted of 3 sessions.

The first session was when subject matter experts weighed in on the situation live via Skype from different areas in Yemen. The 9 subject matter experts spoke about an array of different subjects including sanitation, awareness, prevention, city updates, government response etc. From 9:30 am - 12 pm, the participants got a comprehensive report with the latest updates from the different entities tackling cholera.

Dr. Abdulhakeem Alkohlany, from Relief and Sustainable Humanitarian Development (RSHD), started the talks by providing the latest statistics for perspective and then discussing the government response. Marije Broekhuijsen, the Yemen Water and Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster Coordinator, gave an overview of the situation and walked the participants through the WASH Cluster response. From Albayda, Adel Salah discussed how National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response (NFDHR) is dealing with the outbreak and the success that they had in certain areas. From Al-Hudayda, Shohd Taher discussed the situation in one of the most affected areas and how Yemen Act is responding to the crisis. Covering the response across Aldhale'e, Sana'a, Taiz, Lahj and Aden, Dr. Sunita Sharma from International Medical Corps, IMC, gave the participants an idea about how the outbreak is affecting most of the country in various ways. Dr. Abdulfattah Almahdi and Dr. Amatullatief Abotalib from RSHD discussed the response in Dhamar and the epidemic surveillance.

The second session was a brainstorming session where the participants were able to digest and discuss the speaker's talks and organize their thoughts. We also noticed most of them pulled out their laptops and started researching some of the organizations and the projects running in Yemen. Here the participants started formulating different approaches to help alleviate the cholera outbreak.

The third session was a chance for the different groups to present their ideas and for the rest of the participants to chime in and ask questions about the varying proposals.

People were engaged, actively seeking solutions and will probably never look at a news headline about the humanitarian crises the same way again. We wanted to start engaging the different sectors like civil engineering or science and bring them together for one day to dissect the problems we have at hand. The event was not about inventing something groundbreaking, the event was about raising awareness and connecting people with entities in Yemen where they feel their knowledge and expertise can add value.

Although it was a 1 day event, there is a follow up plan to keep the ball rolling. Each team agreed on a project leader who would work on further articulating their solutions and working with Innovative Yemen on presenting their final presentations and pitch documents. The teams can then be connected with local agencies to seek the application of such ideas.

Bringing together the diversely experienced speakers to effectively discuss the situation with a group of participants from different backgrounds is one example of how we want to attract the right attention to Yemen.

Educate. Engage. Empower.

We'd like to thank the participants, the speakers from Yemen, Generations For Peace for hosting us and Dr Majdi from Bab Alyemen Alsaeed Restaurants for shouldering all catering costs.

On Sunday the 6th of August, 2017, The Yemeni Film Days in Amman at the Royal Jordanian Film Commission kicked off. Innovative Yemen contributed to this event that brought together people from different backgrounds and nationalities to watch and discuss films produced in Yemen and about Yemen.

About the films:

Sunday:Two films directed by Sara Ishaq were screened. Karama Has No Walls and The Mulberry House revolving around the 2011 revolution in Yemen, highlight some of the things that Sara and other filmmakers faced during that time.

Karama Has No Walls is an eyewitness account of the Friday of Karama, in the capital city, Sana'a, from the lens of two cameramen. The Mulberry House is about Sara and her family. Sara Ishaq is a Yemeni filmmaker who grew up in Yemen but moved to Scotland at the age of 17. Ten years later she returned to Yemen, only to find herself caught up in the protests and documenting the revolution.

After the films, there was a brief Q&A session, and Sara took the opportunity to talk about her new social enterprise, Comra. Comra is based in Yemen, and it aims to educate and empower Yemeni filmmakers.

From the Comra team:

"Having worked together as independent filmmakers for years, our team finally decided to join forces this summer and become Comra Films. Since 2011, we have collaborated on a plethora of films: a few you may not know about, some award-winning ones, and others that have screened internationally on TV, at festivals, conferences or educational institutions.

Moreover, through our ever-evolving film-training program, we have had the pleasure of meeting and collaborating with some of Yemen's most exciting new talent, amassing an unrivaled, burgeoning network of freelance media & film professionals from across the country.

Our goal and purpose is to foster the essence of Yemen's cultural identity through our films; to promote Yemen's next generation of filmmakers and to continue to shed light on the most pressing issues our country faces every day.

We cordially invite you to check out our website www.comrafilms.com to learn more about our work, team or to get in touch! ​"

Monday:

The RFC featured a series of short documentaries. Four of which were products of the Comra camp that took place in Yemen this year. The 5th documentary is called Departure by Yemeni Ibbi Ibrahim and Jordanian Hosam Omran that highlighted the stories of two Yemen women who were stranded outside of Yemen when the war started. The 6th was produced for FRONTLINE TV by filmmaker Martin Smith and producers Sarah Obeidat, a Jordanian, and Michelle Mizner who were the only journalists allowed in Yemen.

Tuesday:

The film ‘A New Day in Old Sanaa’ by Bader bin Hersi is a romantic tale about a young man Tariq torn between marrying his fiancé who he doesn’t know and marrying a girl he fell in love with and risk alienating his family.

Wednesday:

Socotra: The Hidden Land by Carles Cardelús was featured. It’s about the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean.

“This film tells the story of an extraordinary land that is only now coming to light. Every step on this unique island brings another discovery, and to visit its otherworldly landscapes is to cross a frontier in time and embark on an unforgettable voyage into the unknown that can never be repeated.”

The documentary focuses on the Socotri people, the different beliefs and social structures of the people and life in general for those Yemenis that even most Yemenis don’t know about.

The Outcomes:

The outcomes are far greater than we had anticipated. The turnout was absolutely incredible; it far exceeded our expectations and the support was overwhelming. People from all walks of life and of different nationalities attended and each person learned something different about one of the most misunderstood and underrepresented Arab countries.

The most important thing to us were the dialogues that erupted because of this. More people feel connected to Yemen, more people know about the devastating humanitarian crisis and more people have reached out to us asking to assist in anyway possible. This is why we’re doing what we’re doing. People can’t help what they don’t understand and we hope that with every everything we do, we educate others about Yemen, what Yemen can offer and what Yemen needs.

Amman is a wonderful city to be in for a plethora of reasons including the fact that the many different Arab cultures are celebrated and embraced here.

We hope more people will discuss Yemen and understand that they can help as well, if even by word of mouth.

Of course none of this would have been possible if not for the Royal Film Commission and their support. Check out their page for upcoming events and film screenings:​https://web.facebook.com/filmjo/?_rdc=1&_rdr

To read more about the documentaries and the film week, follow this link:

Our calendar has been pretty eventful since our launch event earlier this month. Last week we hosted the first ever Rowad Global Network Meetup here in Amman. It’s an online platform that aims to connect Yemeni entrepreneurs or those interested in entrepreneurship no matter where they are. The city ambassador, Maali Jamil, with the help of the Innovative Yemen team hosted about 20 Yemenis at Montage Café in Jabal Amman. The goal was to understand what Yemenis in Amman know about the city and what challenges they’ve faced.

One message we’ve been trying to maintain since we started Innovative Yemen is that there are opportunities in the MENA region. Accelerators across the region are constantly looking for ‘deal flow’ and we want to highlight these different programs so that Yemenis can know where to look.

Another message is that for Yemenis abroad, getting together and reaching out to different creative centers in their cities can also create opportunities. The Rowad Global Network aims to bring like-minded people together in hopes that they will utilize the resources they have and leverage their networks in order to create a movement within the different cities. The startup communities are more likely to help once people have a well-articulated cause or ask.

We hope to continue to have these meetups on a regular basis and continue to grow with the community.

​The idea of working on Innovation for Yemen has been developing for quite a while, yet when like-minded individuals met on a Tuesday on May 16th of this year it took a different direction and gained a great deal of momentum.

Less than two months later, which also included Ramadan and a busy schedule, we gathered yesterday night at the Columbia Global Center in Amman around great people for an insightful event attended by key individuals to explain our initiative and discuss it.

We are a group of Yemenis from different backgrounds who came together here in Amman and decided to tackle problems in Yemen using different approaches. With the welcoming spirit of our host community and the hard work of the team members and volunteers, we were successfully able to present our ideas yesterday night to our audience and potential partners. The two sessions we had allowed us to listen to different points of view, constructive criticism and most importantly candid and sincere advice. Our hope is that we become one of many initiatives to use an asset-based approach and one that motivates, educates, and engages active innovative actors across multiple disciplines at the national, regional, and international level to promote the introduction of ideas, and solutions that deliver exponential growth rewarding us with sustainable development for Yemen.

Our goals are quite simple in terms of articulation, yet the challenges ahead of us are great.

So what do we want to do?

Basically (1) Innovative Yemen aims to tackle issues by bringing onboard innovation that is either (a) under development, or (b) applied in other parts of the world with the people and organizations working on these issues on the ground. It goes without saying that those on the ground battling these challenges are doing a great job of keeping Yemen above water and it is such work that is keeping and maintaining the livelihood of millions of families, and their children. We want to look at those very same issues and facilitate the possibility of introducing a different approach that can multiply impact. (2)We aim to support and empower people in Yemen and abroad through mentorship, capacity building, and facilitating funding whilst also connecting them with international counterparts and interested partners. (3) Increase & raise the much-needed awareness about the struggles of Yemenis, the effects of the war, and the potential of Yemen and all that it has to offer.

The way Innovative Yemen plans to do this is by being constantly in contact with stakeholders on the ground and stay educated about the situation from those closest to the issues, by talking to people with influence outside of Yemen both in the Middle East and abroad to raise awareness on not only the problems, but the possible solutions as well, and by engaging Yemenis within Yemen and abroad to create a movement that will revive the beautiful spirit and genius of the People of Yemen.

Since we started this less than 2 months ago, we have had individuals, and organizations reaching out with questions, and also concerns, so we would like to address them here as well.

1) Humanitarian aid and innovation are not mutually exclusive and we, and anyone else who wants to focus on Yemen, could work on both. Millions of people are suffering and humanitarian aid cannot save everyone so we feel it is our duty to try to bring different solutions to the table and redirect funding to these projects to be rolled out in Yemen. Aid is limited by design so by bringing innovation and funding for these projects we may extend the lifeline to more people although we still won't be able to save everyone.

2) We are constantly being asked about the war and instability and these are valid concerns. However, we can only work in the context that we know how to. We cannot address the political landscape nor can we influence the warring parties. We will work within our sphere of knowledge, experience, and passion and hopefully bring about some change. We want to create impact despite the circumstances because this movement needs to happen and we cannot wait for the end of the war to be the start of this. Yemen was already behind before the war and now we've fallen farther behind. The challenges that await us are definitely daunting at times, but this is why innovation is so great. It has the ability to make impossible situations seem a bit easier.

3) We're also asked about the startup scene and why we want to empower entrepreneurs in a place like Yemen at a time like this. Startups are drivers of exponential growth. It is also important to highlight that Startups coming out of a war zone will most likely be addressing the challenges that people are currently facing, but even if they're not, it is key that we contribute to the potential of delivering through them economic prosperity regardless if there's a war or not. With stability, we would probably be able to deliver more and create a larger impact but starting now is a reasonable step and in the right direction. Yemeni people deserve hope and deserve to be heard and seen.

4) We cannot wait for traditional methods to be put into action. Because of the war, within the next few years, we will not be able to build all of the schools Yemen needs. We will not be able to provide the best hospitals and the greatest infrastructure even if the war were to end tomorrow. What we can do is create an environment where people see problems with a different mindset and look at unconventional ways of supporting the people and addressing the needs in Yemen.

Overall, it was a wonderful night and we appreciated everyone who showed up and spoke to us. We're looking forward to engaging with you all of you and keeping the discussion going with more people at future events.

​Our work is about building awareness on what how innovative and creative centers around the world can understand the Yemen context, and how such hubs can engage with Yemen. A key innovative partner for Yemen are the different cities, and hubs across the UK. The team discussed with HE Simon Shercliff the UK ambassador to Yemen the thinking being developed and some of the initiatives we are working on. The iftar was also a chance to listen and learn from bright and wonderful minds.

It was a long night like all the other previous night during Ramadan, and the tam was getting to know each other, and also layout the challenges surrounding Yemen, and how can innovation represent a positive intervention to both the functioning parts of the economic cycles in cities, and the hunamtarian work underway across all parts of Yemen.